Not necessarily. You're assuming that she'd die from Tief Blau before she'd become an immortal from Cure. While I'm inclined to roll with you on that assumption, I'm just sayin' that with KID you can never be too sure. They argue some pretty crazy bullshit. Which, if you read my posts after I beat the game, you'll see really irritated me. XD

How would she become an immortal from Cure? She had to receive the antibodies from Tsugumi first, right? I thought the others couldn't give her the injection before they escaped since she was still in the pod for treatment, and Takeshi gave it to her after he came back.

With KID? I wouldn't put anything past them. Forgive me, my memory of the game's not as sharp as yours is right now. I forgot that Coco had not received the improperly-made antiserum since she had been placed in the hyperbaric chamber posthaste.

Maybe Coco transcends time, too. After all, we see in Path 5 that she appears to Blick (inside of Hokuto's body) in some sort of spirit form or astrally-projected form. Perhaps the life form reading is of Coco just leading up to the moment of her would-be death, and it shows up at any and all times because of temporal anomalies.

Blick got scared and his imagination went wild. Like Coco, his psychic powers revolve around hallucination, or more accurately manipulating sensory information in the brain. Coco's astral projections and Sora's are functionally the same, imprinting the image right to sensory receptors, although I think in place of the eyes like with RSD, Coco's powers and his remotely stimulate the brain directly. I'd characterize it as a controlled form of schizophrenia, and when Blick talks to You and Kaburaki simultaneously I'd think the same parts of their brain would show stimulation.

When Blick "possesses" people, he's looking through their eyes, so with his abilities if he's possessing someone who's currently having a bout of schizophrenia, he's going to see some really crazy stuff. Even if he's the cause of it. The "Takeshi melting" bit when he thought about the temporal paradox was one such example of panic-induced schizophrenia.

So in the Kick the Can incident, I thought of it (in both incidents) as Blick getting so creeped out, he imagined the sound of the kicking can, and broadcast that illusion to everyone in the room, leading to the shared experience. It would have been one of the few times Blick's perspective didn't 100% overlap with Takeshi's (Takeshi Route deja vu perhaps?), but in Kid's Route, where Blick unknowingly has complete control of Kid, the panic would have been mutual between Blick and Kid.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lilbluecorsola

2) How come the life reading was always "1" at the end? It shouldn't have picked up Coco and Takeshi since they were cryogenically frozen, right? Blick Winkel shouldn't count either since he's just a "perspective". So then who/what is this mysterious entity?

I'm confident it's Blick setting off the reading. If I recall correctly, once Takeshi dies the scenes change to LeMU underwater. If one thinks of this as Blick going into "third person" mode, he's the only possible candidate for setting off the life readings underwater like that. The mere act of observing the life reading causes it to give a false positive.

How Blick is setting it off is a bit tougher to explain, and would involve debating the mechanics of Infinity psychic power. I don't remember if Blick's actions could deceive Sora, i.e. she heard the kicked can, but I don't see why psychic power would be limited to biological systems like brains and not something simpler like a computer system. I think of the first Star Trek episode I ever saw proper, "Nomad" which featured Spock using his mind meld on an artificial intelligence. A lot of people online seem to question how this is possible, but I felt it was within believaility for psychic power, which by definition goes beyond the brain's normal limitations.

(Hey Doppel, I just noticed something. I'm sure this is totally unintended, but check this out: Lie + Blick (Winkel) = Leiblich. Lieblich lies to Blick! Too bad "Lieblich" is "LEE-blick" and not "LIE-blick", being as it's German and all. )

That's pretty cool, I'm usually good with picking up anagrams or word similarities but didn't catch that. I don't know if a German would pronounce "blick" and "blich" the same though. There was a fellow on AP named "Ivotas" who I thought fashioned his name from an anagram of the German "Tobias" or "Tovias", but while the name was based off his real one, that's how how Tobias is pronounced in German (apparently). More like Russian I guess.

Being in cryogenesis shouldn't matter, but in that case it'd ought to be a 2, not a 1. (Struck out for reasons explained two paragraphs below. But keep reading for now.) Pippi (as we discover in Path 5) is a robot, so s/he doesn't count either. I suppose one interpretation you could offer would be that LeMMIH Sora may have adjusted the life form readings count to reflect her own presence, and since she's still stuck on LeMU as it goes down, the game would show you a life form count of 1. But that seems like a forced pet theory which can't really be proven one way or another.

Are you sure the 1 is at the end of every path? I don't remember it showing up period, to be honest. I'm sure it did, but I wonder: are you sure it showed up in Path 5 as well? Maybe it only shows up for all non-Path 5 paths. That would make the most sense.

I just realized, you're saying that the cryo reading shouldn't count, and you're also saying that if it did count then it'd have to count both Coco and Takeshi. But the thing is, Takeshi isn't in LeMU at the end of any of the non-Path 5 paths. Takeshi is at the bottom of the ocean floor. And he stays there until Path 5 when Blick takes action.

So, given this information, I'd have to say that:
(1) the lifeform thing doesn't show up at the end of Path 5, and
(2) it is referring to Coco and Coco alone. Takeshi isn't onboard the station at the time, Pippi's a robot, and Sora's an AI.

Sora setting the life-form reading to reflect herself would make sense in her own storyline. If that part of LeMU was functioning, it would have been very poetic reaffirmation of her humanity. Though, I'm positive the same reading came at the end of Tsugumi's Path, which may rule out that option.

However, I think it was confirmed that IBF's residents do not set off the life-form reading in LeMU. In 2017, the living residents were Takeshi, Tsugumi, Kaburaki, You, Coco. The non-living residents were Sora and Pipi. The unknown is Blick Winkel. The numbers fluctuated from 5 to 7, so even counting Tanaka Yoichi, who was alive during this time in the IBF, there would have been another unaccounted person, who may/may not have existed. If the IBF is counted, then Yoichi was included in the initial reading, and Coco is the remaining person after LeMU implodes. If IBF isn't counted, we could use your theory of Sora adjusting the count to reflect herself, or Blick Winkel's setting it off. There's no way once LeMU is flooded there was another person alive in there.

I'm bumping this because THIS IS THE WEEK COMRADES! LEMU IS CURRENTLY FLOODED.

Ever17 came out in 2002, and was pretty speculative about the future, but in a near-future sense, much like The Martian. However, it was forecasting far more bold innovations and further in the future than Weir's novel.

How far have we come?

1. Terabyte discs

They exist! Ever17 did not imagine that flash memory would eventually replace optical discs, reaching the 1 TB threshold far earlier than the descendants of the CD-ROM, but that doesn't mean it wasn't possible. TB opticals were still speculative as of 2015 but they're out now. Just in time!

2. The 2010 Clone Law

No international laws or guidelines were proposed in 2010, but cloning as depicted in Ever17 is possible. It hasn't happened with humans, but it's a proven process with animals. So certain scenes plot lines would have happened anyway regardless of their legality.

3. Underwater theme parks

Proposed but not constructed yet. It's 3 years too early for undersea adventures, and the real thing will be considerably more picturesque than LeMU (which was basically built out in the middle of the ocean).

Ever17s tief blau was basically a viral version of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. Because it was a virus, it replicated much faster and was easier to transmit (due to higher viral load via exhalation) than the bacterial version.

In an ironic twist, I grew up to work in clinical laboratories where we'd isolate/culture/identify infectious agents like this, so I'm fairly up to date. Though healthcare has seen new viruses over the years (notably Zika recently) nothing like Tief blau has emerged.

You could probably imitate its epidemiological payloads, though, by reintroducing smallpox.

6. Biological immortality

It exists, but Tsugumi's form is still unattainable as of yet. Tsugumi was not only immortal, but invulnerable, and she did not age after having reached adolescence. Her case was a result of cancer.

Humans who never age, a genetic disease termed Syndrome X, occurs, but it does not confer the advantages of eternal youth as depicted.

The bowhead whale and greenland shark are among the longest lived of vertebrates, due to what appears to be a rigorous anti-cancer mechanism. For the bowhead whale, it has duplicate sets of anti-cancer genes which, along with its lack of predators, are believed to what allow it to live out longer than other whales. For the greenland shark, its low metabolism is believed to be the source of its longevity. Caloric restriction has a notable positive correlation with maximum age span, which is related to methionine metabolism. In fact, if you simply limit your methionine consumption overall, you will experience effects similar to overall caloric restriction. Caloric restriction is an indirect method of limiting methionine metabolism.

True biological immortality occurs in jellyfish, but it also involves a life cycle change, rather than simply reaching your peak and not dying.

Nothing living is invulnerable.

7. The Third Eye

This was occult even in the world of Ever17 with a tenuous connection to general relativity, but unless any psychics in the audience (Koizumi?) want to chip in, I don't think anyone has solved how to telepathically communicate with folks from other worlds.

THAT SAID, it seems like "isekai" fiction is at an all-time high of popularity right now, so perhaps we're being visited without knowing it?